Day One (out of sequence)

Yesterday I accidently posted Day 2 instead of day 1. I thought about skipping Day 1 altogether but my inbox has been has been flooded with thousands of e-mails requesting a posting of Day 1 so here it is for the one or two people who will read it.

(06/27/08)
Day one of the trials got off to a great start. I woke up about 6 o’clock and decided to go out for a short jog. My jogs are definitely short and slow these days because of my neuropathy but I enjoy them so much that it is worth the discomfort they bring to my feet. The first thing you notice when you hit the ground running is that you are not alone. Everywhere you look there are people out running and jogging. The guy next to you could be Joe Jogger who plods along like I do, or it could be an elite runner who is entered in the Olympic Trials. It is not too difficult to tell the two apart. After my attempt at jogging I joined my friends at the all you can eat breakfast buffet where I quickly undid any health benefits that I might have achieved through my morning jog. After breakfast I had some time to kill (I hate that phrase because the older I get the more cognoscente I am of how little time I really have left and God keeps reminding me that I am suppose to be redeeming the time I have left and not killing it) so I did a little reading, rested my eyes (do I need to translate that expression for you?) ate some lunch, and then decided to make a dry run up to the track to check out our seats and to watch the high hurdle heats of the heptathlon which started at 1PM. The other guys didn’t want to get to the track until 5:30 because that’s when the real interesting events started. The first thing I learned was that security at these trials is really stringent. In order to get to the track you have to go through a security check similar to that of an airport. Once you get through that you need to walk through the street fair that stretches around two sides of the track. I enter the track from the east side where the ticket taker examines you ticket and runs an electronic scanner over the bar code on your ticket to make sure it is not bogus. You can’t take food or water into the stadium but you can take an empty water bottle in and fill it up at one of the drinking fountains. So, that’s the first thing I did. Then I headed up the stairs of Sec. P to row 25. What an amazing view of the whole track. We look down on the backstretch almost right across from the finish line. With a good pair of binoculars you can see just about every event. The toughest to follow from our seats are the long jump and triple jump. I no sooner settled down in my seat than the high hurdles began. Normally the heptathlon high hurdles are not very special but the few fans in the seats for this event were treated to something special when, in Heat 2, Hyleas Fountain ran 12.65 to set a new American Record previously held by Jackie Joyneer-Kersee. Her time was also the second fastest time ever run in the world. So, by making the extra effort to come early I was treated to a bit of history. After the hurdles I headed out with most of the fans that came to see the hurdles. (only the most die hard of die-hard fans stuck around for the field events of the heptathlon) After spending some time wondering through the street fair, I went to University Village. I found a bike shop where I was able to rent a bike for $60 a week. (my first bike didn’t cost that much and I owned it but these bikes are not you grandparent’s bikes—they are high tec and ride like a dream) Eugene is the most bike friendly city I know of. There are almost as many bike paths as there are streets for cars and you can get all over the city on a bike. Biking is such a big part of transportation up here that the meet organizers have a special bicycle lot where they have free valet parking for people who ride their bikes to the meet. Back at the track in the late afternoon it was fun to see the meet kick off with a special introduction of the 1980 Olympic Team Members. (if you recall, that was the team that never got to go over to the Games in Moscow because our county (Jimmy Carter) decided to boycott the Games because of Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan. (kind of ironic because look where we are now). It was neat watching two of my favorite athletes, Mary Slaney and Steve Scott take their honor walk around the track. Then the real fun began. We watched Adam Nelson step in the ring and with one throw hit the automatic qualifying mark in the shot put. In the women’s 100, Marshevet Hooker looked good leading all qualifiers for tomorrows semi-finals with a time of 10.76w. And, really surprising and exciting was to see Jeshua Anderson become the fastest qualifier in the 400 H with a time of 49.05. Anderson comes out of Taft High School and is only a freshman at Washington State. All you City track athletes and fans know all about Jeshua and I’m sure are rooting as hard as I am for him to make the Olympic Team but remember he is only a freshman and the whole cast of established stars in this event are still around and will follow him in to tomorrows semi-final. Maybe you think that perfect 10s only happen in gymnastics but the 10K final here tonight was a Perfect 10. Flanagan proved that our food for thought was a mute point as she broke Mary Slaney’s Hayward Field record with her time of 31:34.81. She pulled two other exzooberant runners onto the Olympic team along with her, Kara Goucher and Yoder Begley. Begley was especially overcome with joy as her 3rd place time of 31:43.60 also gave her her first A qualifying standard for the Olympic Games. Day One was really One Day to remember. Can’t wait to see what Day Two holds in store. (06-27-08)

A great link to info and pictures of the Olympic Trials can be found here:

http://www.registerguard.com/csp/cms/sites/OT/Home/index.csp